Hallucination
by Ennya
Summary: Before joining the LXG, Dorian Gray gets an unexpected visitation from an old friend.


**** I do not own Dorian Gray, he is the creation of my most favourite novelist of all time! ****  
  
**** A/N: If you have read the book, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, you are familiar with a young actress who gave her life for Dorian's love. This story tells of how right before Dorian joins the league, he gets a rather unexpected visitation. Learn that it was not Mina's presence at all that encouraged Dorian to join Quartermain. Enjoy! ****  
  
Hallucination  
  
Dorian could not bear it any longer. The sight of the paper sitting so calmly on the end table by the sofa, it sickened him! Just to know that it was there was enough to make his lip curl in detest. He sat in his armchair, wearing his best suit, and held mindlessly the glass of half- drunk brandy in his hand, staring at the piece of paper.  
  
He loathed it. He despised it! How dare anyone even think of going to him, Dorian Gray himself, to kindly ask in his assistance to save the world? He smirked at the thought of it and sipped his brandy. It was out of the question. He wouldn't do anything to protect the innocent. Even if it meant the world's domination.  
  
~ Let them come. ~ Dorian sneered as he thought of the horrid riders of the apocalypse. ~ I could not need another year in this sacrilegious Hell. ~  
  
World domination was possibly the only way it could be done. Dorian thought about this for a moment. If the world was destroyed, and he was immortal, what would happen to him? Would be perish, nevertheless of the legends behind his portrait that hid in the room at the top of the stairs? Hidden in the dark behind the purple screen in that dark room to which Dorian could not even pass the door without shuddering?  
  
The house was quiet. Dorian sat and stared at the paper. The cackling of the fire had died down considerably. There was not a sound. For a moment Dorian swore he could have heard that horrid voice calling to him through the ventilation, and the ghost of his very damnation coming back to see to him, to punish him for everything he had done.  
  
In a fit of fury Dorian erupted from his seat, dropping inconsiderately the glass of brandy on the coffee table. He marched over to the end table and seized the piece of paper, not even looking at the fine inked words before tearing it to shreds and throwing it into the remains of the low fire. He stared at them, snatching his brandy from the coffee table and drinking the rest. He watched the paper burn, and then threw the brandy glass to join the paper. It shattered.  
  
How dare they? How dare they even think as to ask him?  
  
It had been a few days since Dorian had received the letter, the letter that asked him if he would provide his assistance to one Quartermain, a world-famous hunter, who was assigned to find a madman. With the help of a series of legends, as the letter stated, they would work together to save the people of the world and stop the madman.  
  
"Out of the question!" Dorian shrieked suddenly aloud, unaware that he no longer had inner-monologue. He was almost speaking to the fire itself, as it seemed to crackle and snap back at him in a profound way. Dorian was glad there were no servants in the house, they were already afraid of him enough; they did not need to know that he was talking to himself.  
  
"Out of the question! I refuse to fight for the good! It was the utter goodness that turned me into-into this!" he shouted loudly, and tried to rip at his suit, but failed as he fell back down onto his armchair. He had the greatest anxiousness to march straight upstairs to the black room that whispered of death to look into the portrait, to look into that horrid old face that seemed to be of a dead corpse. Dorian wanted nothing more than to take the blood stained scissors and slash that portrait, that picture that granted him the greatest damnation!  
  
Who cared for beauty anymore? Dorian had lived far too long to appreciate it anymore. He looked at himself in the mirror day after day and was disgusted with himself, he saw the person staring at him, knowing that this man had had enough of life.  
  
Was eternal life and beauty really so much to risk the life of his best friend, and then the sanity of himself, who was once a very well liked, noble person who loved and was loved?  
  
Dorian rubbed his eyes, shaking his head softly, running his thumbs and fingers over his cheekbones delicately, staring into the fire and shaking his head. "Harry, Harry, you see what he has done to me?" he chanted, wandering into his memory, back into the days when he was with his friends, when he was once a very good person who people liked, before the madness, before the bad deeds and evil words, before the picture.  
  
The picture of Dorian Gray.  
  
"You see why I had to do it?" Dorian snarled to the air, staring at the armchair across from him. Empty, but he stared at it coldly as though someone sat upon it with a tongue to taunt and sneer.  
  
Murder was a terrible thing to look upon in one's past. M had failed to notice it when he asked kindly for Dorian to join Quartermain in the search for "Phantom". Or perhaps he had noticed it quite clearly and ignored it, and merely "forgot" to tell Quartermain that a murderer would be aboard his fine league. This...league of extraordinary gentlemen.  
  
Dorian smirked and a thin smile crept upon his lush lips. "Extraordinary gentlemen indeed, don't you agree Harry?"  
  
No answer.  
  
He laughed. "Oh Harry, how sarcastic you are."  
  
Speaking to himself in the middle of the night. It was possible that the endless count of days, weeks, months, years, had finally gotten to him at long last. The madness was about to settle in completely on Dorian Gray, as he had spent a little less than centuries to himself, away from people in this house with his portrait. He and his portrait, what little company, and quiet company. Quiet and deadly. It showed Dorian what he had done for beauty. What an honest, lovely young aristocrat in high favor of everyone had done for glory, and to stay a beautiful boy forever.  
  
Dorian laughed softly to himself. "I remember the day I met you, Harry. Dear Harry, or rather I should say Lord Henry. You were so new and alive to me, I sat at that piano and when I saw you standing with...well, with * him * I knew right away that I would like you. I couldn't help it. How charming you were, sarcastic and cynical yes, but charming. You were a good friend to me Harry, Lord Henry. You still are...even now as you are dead."  
  
Dorian let out a deep sigh.  
  
"And me? I can never die."  
  
More silence, the sounds of Dorian blinking his eyes softly in the dull light.  
  
"Perhaps I died once."  
  
His lips moved and he mumbled words oblivious to his own mind.  
  
"But I could never die again."  
  
Dorian shut his eyes, as though he meant to cry.  
  
"But perhaps this is Hell, Harry."  
  
He laughed softly to himself and got up to get himself a new glass of brandy. As he poured he could have sworn he heard his name called to him. The portrait in the upstairs room. It had been calling to him for several days now.  
  
Dorian sipped his brandy and looked up at the ceiling, as if listening to the pleas of the picture. He laughed steadily and sat down. He stared at what was left of the fire, and the ashes that remained of M's letter.  
  
"It's haunting me, Harry." Dorian said, his hands shaking. "This old house, that picture with the screen. That room that drips with death. Those scissors I have not once held since the night it happened. It's a pity you didn't live long enough for me to tell you that it was me." He sipped his brandy in silent guilt.  
  
He swallowed and nodded aimlessly to the air. "Yes Harry, it was me. I was the one who killed Basil. He didn't just get lost in Paris. I told you this once Harry, and you didn't believe me." Dorian laughed. "You and your judge of character. You must have forgotten that I said I killed him. No you didn't forget, you refused to believe it. Your mistake."  
  
"Alas Harry, I do miss you. And despite his perfection, his-jealously...I miss Basil."  
  
Dorian drank his brandy. A longer sip this time. He was not only losing his mind; he was slowly slipping out of soberness. "You were right, he was never clever enough to be murdered. People loved him, despite his shyness and habit to be easily defeated. I wonder what you must have thought, when I didn't come to your house at eleven. To walk like civil gentlemen in the park and look at the orchids."  
  
Dorian was quiet, and then he snickered. "Orchids, Harry? What were you thinking? You were turning into your dear wife, whom you neither loved nor liked."  
  
The young man yawned painfully. He wanted to sleep but his mind was being plagued by memories of his past. Memories of the people he knew and loved, of his popularity, memories of the events of the past that he both regretted and took pride in knowing he had done it.  
  
M could not allow Dorian Gray into this league he was talking about. Dorian would be too much for the others; he would be too much of a corruption. It didn't matter what the other legends were like, the thief, the hunter, Captain Nemo, the vampire. He could not join them. No matter how much more evil they were or seemed to be, he would not leave his house to join them. There was no way in Heaven or Hell.  
  
"I wonder why I speak to you and not Basil," Dorian said to break the thoughts of his mind, frantic and rushing about, wanting answers of some degree. "Basil could not be reasoned with. Him and his fascination, with art. With me. It did nothing but get him in trouble. My God look where he is now!"  
  
~ You killed him. ~ A voice seemed to say to him in the quiet of the room.  
  
Dorian lay limply in the chair; the empty glass fell from his numb fingers. The fire was almost out and the voices ceased to speak to him any further. He was angry for it, but at the time being all he wanted was to be alone and left to his own thoughts. That was why he had turned down M's proposal. Well, one of the reasons. Dorian had had many years to coupe with himself for all the last mistakes in his life, but he didn't take the time to consider what he had to do to pay for it all.  
  
Paying for his bad deeds with his life, in which nothing could take.  
  
Paying with his own soul, taken by the Devil.  
  
Dorian found himself biting into his lip, hard enough to make it bleed. And bleed it did. He licked away the blood and tasted it. He was upset when he knew it was there. He swallowed tightly and sighed deeply. The light was fall softly; the fire was almost out. The letter sat in ashes in the fireplace.  
  
"Don't hate me Harry." Dorian murmured softly to the darkness, staring once again at the empty armchair, imagining and wishing that a friend occupied it. But he had not had many friends. Not in the past century or so.  
  
He fell onto his knees and kneeled at the coffee table in anguish. He found himself hated himself for everything that had happened in his past. In the memorable time when he had slipped from mortal to and immoral demon, who could not die. He didn't wish for Basil to hate him, for murdering him so cold-bloodedly, and he certainly didn't wish for Lord Henry to hate him, for murdering Basil.  
  
"Forgive me Henry, Basil. I don't know what's come over me these past centuries. The portrait, the horrid portrait, and the thought that it's still up there." He bowed his head. "Oh why? Why did I have to be so obsessed with my own face? What has it brought me? Nothing! Nothing but pain and angst!"  
  
He let himself fall into deep sorrow. He had been drowned in it for many, many years. It was nothing new but at a time like this he didn't want anything more for it to come and swallow him. If he had nothing else, he had his memories, be them good or bad. And he had the sadness that accompanied them so graciously.  
  
He closed his eyes tightly. How well he remembered Basil and Harry as they all sat together in Basil's house as the painter made them sit as he painted the young man's portrait with sheer delicacy and the mixture of the pastes that concealed and captured every feature of Dorian's being with the stroke of the brush.  
  
They drank tea, he remembered that. And they spoke of many things. He remembered Harry telling him that they could be quite good friends. Dorian noted that this was the time Basil's jealously had rose, although he did a splendid job at hiding it. He remembered his friends, his two best friends.  
  
Even as he was invited to many parties, teas and social gatherings, he never enjoyed them as much as he did spending time with Lord Henry and Basil. They almost seemed like a trio of brothers, good-natured brothers who loved each other dearly and shared almost identical passions. They all had their traits of course. Henry was the loud sarcastic one. Dorian was the elegant charmer. Basil was the shy talented one.  
  
It broke Dorian's heart to think of them all being together again, even as he promised himself that he would never think of them again, so he could feed the growing hate and pain inside of his heart and soul. He refused to ever let them know, in this life or the next, the guilt that he felt for that time period. He pleaded for apology to Basil. He asked Henry's advice. He no longer knew what to do anymore.  
  
"Harry?" Dorian squeaked into the darkness, and this time he expected no reply. Perhaps he had come to listen before, but if he had, he was certainly not there now. He had left in spite of himself. He had had enough.  
  
Dorian wanted to cry, but he bit his cheek to keep from crying. Despite the fact that there was no one around, he would not ever show that he was vulnerable to his past.  
  
He was drifting into denial. He knew he was alone in the world. Completely and utterly alone.  
  
Until he heard something, and he thought it had been Lord Henry come back to speak to him. Or perhaps Basil. It was most definitely a voice.  
  
However Dorian listened to what this voice said to him, and before concluding that it was his portrait, he could recognize the voice, the passion in the flow of the stanza.  
  
"Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek? For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night-"  
  
Fear lingered in Dorian for a moment. He rose his head consciously as a single world escaped his dry lips.  
  
"Sibyl?"  
  
There she was, and Dorian knew he must have been dreaming. Sibyl. Sibyl Vane. He wanted to speak her name out again and again, as if in fear of forgetting it. But there she was, she was seated on the sofa, with her legs closed together and her white long fingers entangled together. She was calm.  
  
As he stared at her he had remembered his feelings for her. She was the woman he had proposed to, the actress in the little theater in London. Dorian remembered, he would go and see her every night as she played a new character in each of Shakespeare's plays.  
  
She was extraordinarily beautiful, that Dorian had forgot. He had never even thought about Sibyl after that afternoon Henry had come to tell him that she had poisoned herself. A death fit for the actress of a Shakespearean tragedy.  
  
But here she was. She was alive and she was beautiful. She had not aged a day since he had seen her last. Her long dark hair was tied behind her, as it had been when he last saw her, when she had confessed to him that she would no longer act because it was his love and influence that inspired her to become a free soul. She would no longer live a lie because of him.  
  
Dorian remembered that evening all too well. She had confessed, and it had made him angry and tired. He told her things he should not have said things he didn't think of to the consequences. He spewed them out for nothing, nothing but to lose Sibyl Vane forever. She had been the art in his life. He loved going to see her in the theater. He loved the way she spoke and the way she acted. She was a picture of pure innocence and beauty that no one could ever break.  
  
She had killed herself the following morning after that fight they had had. But here she was. She was seated in his armchair, and she was even smiling at him. She had quoted Juliet when he was certain she would never even dare to think of another Shakespeare play. Had she perchance said this passage to remind him of the night it happened? She had been Juliet that night. The night the world between them seemed to end.  
  
Dorian stared up at her and he found his lips shaking. God how he had missed her. Ever since their argument and ever since Henry had told him that she had poisoned herself, Dorian had never thought a second more about her. Now that she was here, right before his own unbelieving eyes, he hadn't realized how much he truly missed her.  
  
Dorian knew now he had completely gone mad! Sibyl Vane was dead, he knew this within the depths of his soul. Henry had told him in person. And yet here she was. She was not dead, she was warm and alive, her flesh was pink and warm, her clothes old fashioned yet in good shape, her eyes so full and wild, smiling at him. Sibyl Vane was not dead. She looked as though she had never spent a day in the afterlife.  
  
"Sibyl-" Dorian gasped in disbelief and feared she was only a trick of his madness, a trick of his mind. He reached out with his fingers to touch her. He could not reach her, not to even touch the fringe of her costume nor clasp her fingers. Dorian couldn't reach her.  
  
The boy swallowed and pulled away, staring at Sibyl as she stared back at him, smiling sweetly, the ancient kindness lingering in her gray eyes. Dorian felt the tears wallow.  
  
"Harry you told me she was dead." Dorian gasped out to his long since dead friend, lifting himself from the coffee table, staring at Sibyl. "You said I could not marry Sibyl Vane as Sibyl Vane was dead. She killed herself. So tell me Harry, why is she here?"  
  
Harry didn't answer, and Dorian didn't expect him to. Dorian started to shake, he longed for Henry and yet here was the woman he loved the woman who fascinated and hypnotized him. The woman he had not stopped thinking about after her death. His love had brought her to self-realization and his disappointment brought her to death. How could he face her, knowing it was he, in principle, who murdered her so?  
  
No one would believe that he had lived for eternity for Sibyl Vane, but Dorian was beginning to believe that he had. For he felt that any moment now he would die.  
  
"Sibyl..." he said breathlessly, like he was trying to ask her to leave, but he never wanted her to leave again. He reached out once again to touch her.  
  
This time she responded. "My love, Prince Charming."  
  
Dorian shivered, for the flow of her angelic voice brought him raw pleasure and happiness. The sweet voice he was afraid he would never hear again rang out to him. He felt his heart break.  
  
And suddenly Dorian Gray was in tears, he felt them spill uncontrollably over his cheeks and down to his suit and over his lips. Before he even became conscious that he was crying he was hugging Sibyl. He had fallen to her submission. He cradled his head in her lap, hugging her knees desperately, while he felt her ghostly fingers tangling and curling in his hair.  
  
Dorian had lost all known reason. He could not stop sobbing. He begged her forgiveness, asking her desperately to pity him and forgive him. He couldn't control his tears.  
  
"Harry-" he sobbed aloud. "You lied to me!" he hugged her knees tighter and he felt her wince slightly. He pulled away in fear that he had harmed her. He looked into her dark eyes, which smiled lovingly at him, her gentle rosebud lips in a simple sweet smile, her body still and her skin white. She was frail and worn in a way, but to Dorian she had never looked more beautiful. He never wanted her to leave him again. Ever!  
  
He remembered back to the day when Henry had told him that Sibyl had died. It was the very same day Dorian recognized the slight change in his appearance in his picture, to which brought him to the suspicion. That suspicion which eventually came to realization. How obsessive he had been about it, but who wouldn't be? Knowing that all of your emotions and aging were taken out on a portrait of you hanging in the parlor, and that you as an immortal would remain forever perfect, like a picture.  
  
Dorian cursed himself deep inside. Obsessing over that thing? That horrible portrait? The day that Sibyl Vane had died because he had told her the evening before that she had killed his love for her. The excitement and fascination had been droned from him because of her realization, to which he had brought up within her without knowing.  
  
~ Irony, in a way, I suppose ~ Dorian thought to himself, once again resting his head into Sibyl's lap. He could feel the warm of her body and the fingers twisting in his hair. She was alive, so alive.  
  
The anger between them was gone, and the picture no longer came to his mind. All he wanted now was to be conscious, and with Sibyl. He knew he had truly gone mad, speaking to his dead friends, cradling in the woman he once loved with all his heart, and still did.  
  
But Sibyl was here, and she was alive. Dorian was happy, and he could not bring himself to realize it.  
  
Dorian had not been happy for a very long time. He had realized this now. Ever since the horrid picture had been painted and it's creator had "mysteriously disappeared", Dorian had become the fine talk of nasty deeds in which everyone in town had heard of. He was a topic at tea parties and social gatherings, where the women gasped and the men shook their heads. To think such a wonderful young man had taken such pillage in so short a time.  
  
"I'm sorry." Dorian choked to Sibyl, and even within her lap, he could feel her nod, as though she understood perfectly.  
  
After awhile the tears had stopped, and all Dorian did was smile. He was happy now, truly happy with Sibyl, whether or not he had gone mad. He loved her, regardless of what she did in life. Whether she was an actress or not, she would always catch his fancy. He nearly fell asleep in her lap, smiling brightly, just so glad that she was there with him.  
  
Yet Dorian feared that any moment now she would be gone. He couldn't bear to think of it but his smile was gone instantly and he could think of nothing but. He blinked and rose his head from Sibyl's lap softly. "Henry is this a trick?"  
  
He looked at Sibyl Vane's face. She looked concerned, almost worried. She blinked confusedly to her love and gently touched his cheek with her fingertips. Her eyes secretly asked him what was wrong, who was Henry, and what was the horrid look in his eyes about?  
  
"Henry what if Sibyl is gone again? I could not coupe with it!" he collapsed back into Sibyl's lap, hugging her obsessively, and Sibyl let out a small gasp of surprise, nevertheless she did not cease to comfort him, or try to comfort him in any way possible.  
  
"Sibyl I am going mad." Dorian confessed to her, and titled his chin so he could look up into her dark eyes. She stared down at him, not saying a word, sitting only to listen. She touched his face gently and her eyebrows rose.  
  
Dorian couldn't find the words. "Sibyl what if you are not here? What if you go at any moment? Sibyl I am going mad; you died. You died so long ago. How could you be here? Oh Sibyl, don't ever leave me again!"  
  
Sibyl spoke so softly when he thought she would never speak to him again. "If I leave, promise you will join Quartermain. He can bring you to the truth."  
  
Dorian blinked, amazed at hearing her speak. "Sibyl what about M? And his proposition he wishes me to go along with? What of that? I would be betraying them all!"  
  
Sibyl smiled softly. "M nor Quartermain could destroy the beauty within you that once made you human." She spoke, and grazed his cheek with her fingertips.  
  
"I am painted, Sibyl." He gasped.  
  
Sibyl gave a soft laugh. "I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted-" she stopped and her smile was gone instantly. "But you are not a picture, Dorian. Perhaps you are now, but there was a time where you weren't. Remember that."  
  
Dorian swallowed. "Sibyl is there no way to bring you back to me?"  
  
Sibyl merely shook her head.  
  
Dorian wanted to cry. He wanted to cry even harder into her lap and make sure that she never left him. He wouldn't care if he wasted away or not, he would be with Sibyl Vane, and that would be all right with him. At least he could wallow in his own madness with the human meaning that meant more to him at one point than the world.  
  
"What do I do, Sibyl?" he whispered into her costume, fearing her answer, but eager to know.  
  
He felt Sibyl breathe in and then let it out. She was thinking, and he could tell. Her fingers stroked his hair and her warmth made him settle down in the least.  
  
"Go with Quartermain, go along with M, if you must." She said softly to him. "In the end, even if you are damned, your suffering will be forgotten."  
  
"Sibyl-" he gasped. "Will I not be with you? With Henry, and Basil?"  
  
Sibyl did not answer. She was scared to say the answer, and he was scared of the answer he would hear. Dorian bit down on his lip and more tears came. "Sibyl, will you not answer me?" he begged.  
  
She sighed softly, and then smiling ever so gently she whispered to him. "If fate will allow."  
  
Dorian shook his head. She was dead, he knew this. Yet his mind would not stop telling him that if she was alive she could stay with him. "You have eternity." He breathed without knowing what he was saying, to whom he was saying this to.  
  
Sibyl hugged his head in her lap. "You have eternity. I have only now." She told him.  
  
Dorian looked at her urgently. "No Sibyl! Stay with me, please! I beg you! Do not leave me here alone in this madness!"  
  
Smiling gently, she was fading quickly. He gasped and tried to grab her to make sure she wouldn't leave. But she was softly fading from his eyes and mind, and he could no longer hold her and make sure she was still real. He shook his head, begging her to stay with him.  
  
Before another word was said, Sibyl was gone. Just like that.  
  
Dorian sat alone in the dark for a long time. He couldn't believe whether or not seeing Sibyl there was an illusion, or if it were truly real. No, she had been real. He had felt her warmth and he had seen her beauty. He had heard her speak, and now she was gone. Dorian cried out aloud to the empty room, screaming out for Sibyl, screaming out for Henry and for Basil. Screaming out for the devil himself to come and swallow his soul and let him be free of eternal madness.  
  
The doorbell rang.  
  
Dorian snapped back into reality. He was alone in his parlor, the fire had died, Sibyl was there and now was gone. The furniture was untouched, his face was sticky with tears, and the madness in his mind was quickly taking him over. He had heard the bell.  
  
"They've come, Sibyl." He said to himself.  
  
Quartermain with his proposal. They would not rest until they had Dorian Gray with them. Dorian looked to where the letter had been, he remembered M's proposal, and how he had claimed he would think about it. To bring down the league from the inside, and make it seem like all a work of the gentleman thief.  
  
Did Sibyl speak the truth? Could this adventure lead him to the end? The end of the suffering and the madness?  
  
He forced himself to his feet and took in a deep breath. With his handkerchief he wiped away the access tears and tucked it away, sniffing and thinking of Sibyl, staring at the armchair where she had been seated. She was gone, a figment of his maddened mind.  
  
Going with Quartermain and agreeing to M's proposal would bring him to the end of this life. Dorian could think of nothing greater. He just wanted to be with those he loved, he wanted to forget all of this. Even if Sibyl's words were correct and he was damned, at least he would be free from the lie he had lived for centuries.  
  
His mind was made up.  
  
~ Sibyl, Henry, Basil- wait for me. ~ he said to himself.  
  
Hoisting himself up, he went to the stairs to answer the door.  
  
~*~  
  
**** ^_^ I love Dorian Gray, and I loved "The Picture of Dorian Gray". I'm envious that I could never write anything as emotionally and mindfully gripping. I'll always admire Oscar Wilde. I hope you enjoyed this fanfic! **** 


End file.
